by Carter Lavin
Island Press
11/13/2025, paperback
SKU: 9781642833737
Your transit and street safety dreams are within your reach. While challenging our dangerous car-centric systems can feel daunting, you can win, and this book is here to help. In If You Want to Win, You've Got to Fight, transportation activist and advocacy consultant Carter Lavin provides a roadmap for transforming passion into political power.
Whether your dream is to make your community safer and more sustainable by getting protected bike lanes, improving bus service, or expanding high-speed rail, this book provides step-by-step guidance on organizing for change. Through advice from dozens of advocates across the United States and Lavin's own experience with over 100 campaigns, readers will learn transportation-specific strategies to win. Critically, the book teaches readers how to deftly navigate their political, cultural, and historical contexts to adapt their advocacy efforts and make allies -- from local businesses to transit agency staff to key decision makers. Action points at the end of each chapter and a toolbox of campaign tactics at the end of the book enable readers to move seamlessly from brainstorming into concrete action.
Whether you are just starting out or have engaged in transportation advocacy for a while, the tools and insights in this book will help you develop, plan, and execute the transportation-related campaign of your choosing. Professionals in the transportation space will also discover how to be an effective advocate while working within the system.
Accessible and inspirational, If You Want to Win, You've Got to Fight will be a game-changer for people who want our communities to prioritize people over cars.
Your transportation dreams are all possible. Are you ready to fight for them?
Reviews:
"A lot of books will tell you what's wrong with your city's transportation system; this is a book that could actually help us fix it. It's full of actionable, approachable, and inspiring insights into what it will take to change the world, starting with our streets. Frankly, it's the book the transportation reform movement has been waiting for." --Kea Wilson, Senior Editor, Streetsblog USA
"Carter Lavin delivers a clear and inspiring playbook for anyone serious about making transportation safer and more equitable. Packed with real examples and actionable strategies, this book shows that meaningful change comes from persistence, organization, and a willingness to fight for better streets." --Sam Balto, Founder and Executive Director of Bike Bus World
"Carter Lavin equips readers with the tools and tactics they need to rally their communities, build strong coalitions, and convince elected officials that a better world is possible. This should be required reading, whether you're new to the movement or, like me, a veteran in the war on cars." ----Doug Gordon, coauthor of 'Life After Cars'
"A helpful guide for youth or anyone interested in joining the movement for people-first communities. Lavin relays the conditions, tactics, and coalitions necessary for building a movement that is joyous, effective, and widespread." --Elise Joshi, former Executive Director of Gen-Z for Change
About the Author:
Carter Lavin is a climate and transportation activist who helps organizations and individuals hone strategy and build political power. Carter has directly supported and trained non-profits, candidates, grassroots groups, businesses, and hundreds of individuals to win on the issues that matter to them at the local, regional, and state level. He has written for Streetsblog and Convergence Magazine. He lives in Oakland, California and is a co-founder of the transportation advocacy group Transbay Coalition and the board game design company Serious Mischief.